Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Tour Heads to Northern Ireland!

17 August 2011

This weekend will see SAS’s 4th annual Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Tour hit Northern Ireland for the last stop of this year’s tour. This year SAS & Barefoot Wine have together already visited13 locations across the UK ensuring they are as clean and safe as possible for all to enjoy. The tour has one final date so make sure you join us if you can!

SAS and Barefoot Wine are calling on community volunteers to help clean beaches at locations around the country as part of the growing wave of grassroots activism protecting some of the UK’s finest beaches. To date, the Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Tour has welcomed thousands of volunteers who together removed many tonnes of marine litter from the coastline. This year, with the growing public awareness of marine litter issues, we hope to attract a greater number of volunteers than ever before to help remove this unsightly and hazardous litter from our nation’s beautiful beaches.

Dates & Locations

Northern Ireland

10th September, Portrush, East Strand Northern Ireland, 2pm – 5pm

Barefoot Wine beach cleans take approximately 3 hours from 2pm – 5pm. Volunteers receive a free organic Barefoot/SAS volunteer t-shirt, the SAS team and Barefooters host a free team BBQ on the beach, washed down with samples of the Barefoot Wines.

Chief Barefooter, Ali Feest, says: “It’s great to be able to support such a worthwhile campaign and we are honoured to be working with the SAS again for the fourth year in a row. The tour is a fantastic opportunity for people of all ages to get together and show their support for British beaches. We are looking forward to rolling up our sleeves and getting stuck into the 2011 tour and of course, to raise a glass of delicious Barefoot wine at the end of each day.”

Please confirm that you are attending the beach clean by emailing Adam on [email protected] with the date & location that you’d like to attend or by calling 01872 555 950 (We need to make sure we have enough t-shirts, food and drink!)

This is the fourth year that Barefoot has partnered with the SAS’s beach cleaning campaign. Barefoot supports hundreds of local and community events, charity fundraisers, music festivals and sporting events throughout the year and the SAS partnership is an integral part of the community project work. For more information about Barefoot wine and this year’s activities and events please visit http://www.barefootwine.co.uk

The amount of marine litter found on UK beaches has almost doubled in the last fifteen years, with at least 1 piece being found on average every 30cm. Alarmingly, 70% of the litter entering our oceans sinks to the seabed, with 15% floating on the surface and the remaining 15% being washed onto our beaches. Since 1994, plastic items washing items washing up on our shores have increased by 135%. Plastic debris can take hundreds of years to break down and can be lethal to marine wildlife. Over 95% of birds recently examined in the North Sea had ingested plastic items and over 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die each year from ingestion and entanglement.

With 80% of this debris arriving from land-based sources, including the general public, the power is in our hands to make a positive difference to stop this tide of trash. Beach cleans are a great way to remove marine litter, inspire community action and reinforce key SAS anti-litter campaign messages such as Return To Offender and No Butts on the Beach.

Please note

SAS will be conducting a health & safety briefing for all volunteers before each event

Volunteers must be 18 to sample Barefoot Wines

Volunteers under 16 must be accompanied by an adult

We ask all volunteers to come dressed in appropriate clothing, including footwear, for the weather on the day of their beach clean.